The report predicts that mesh technology will account for much of the connectivity needs for the IoT within the next five years. This is your Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, WirelessHART and ISA100.

However, low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) adoption will continue to grow at an accelerated pace. Therefore, don't be surprised to see an increase in compatibility with either LoRA, Sigfox, LTE-M1 or NB1.

These predictions are based on an ON World 2017 survey of over 180 WSN and IoT industry professionals.

The findings also suggest that WSN network satisfaction has improved over time; however, work still needs to be done to improve battery life, costs, network ranges and system integrations.

As for the Industrial IoT (IIoT), ON World reports that 80 percent of industry professionals aiming to automate processes have launched a wireless mesh node at least once. When accounting for all respondents, this number dropped to two-thirds.

WirelessHART appears to lead the process automation market with ISA 100.11a quickly coming up from behind. In fact, the report suggests that adoption of ISA in the process automation market has increased by 67 percent within the past two years.

ON World suggests this adoption increase is due to ISA's flexible time scheduling, software tunneling and compatibility with star and mesh topologies. It suggests that these qualities make the connection framework attractive to the oil and gas industry for gas detection, wellsite monitoring and steam trap monitoring.

Another WSN technology turning heads in the IIoT is the LPWAN. Having wirelessly connected sensors with a 10-year battery life is sure to put smiles on the faces of engineers looking to reduce maintenance times. The fact that an LPWAN makes it possible to have a community of connected devices from a range of over 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) is gravy. Currently 40 percent of those surveyed are either researching or deploying an LPWAN solution.